Sunday, July 9, 2017

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: IF YOU LOVE NIGERIA, SAY SO

Moses, you hit the nail on the head, here. 100%.

We are a divided country, along the lines you detail completely.

Furthermore, the votes in france and britain this past year were very similar.

What that might mean, in an age of globalization, is that we can’t simply put down these sentiments which link a strong sense of entitlement, of being cheated of one’s rights by outsiders, of losing jobs to outsiders, of being taken advantage of, etc.

These feelings are so strong they became majority in brexit, and got us elected an idiot as president.

We can’t ignore them. But frankly I do not know how to react in the face of them. I need some help in combatting my own tendency simply to dismiss them

You're actually making my point about the ebbs and flows of patriotic and separatist agitations and how these sentiments tend to correspond to how certain regions or peoples are feeling in relation to the union. Without the SNC, OPC, Oduduwa Republic struggle, the two major parties in 1999 would not have ceded their tickets to Yoruba candidates, would they?The 1999 election was an all-Yoruba contest. Why? Why do you think the elders you mentioned pleaded with Obasanjo, a Yoruba, to run? If the Southwest had not raised a stink about June 12, had not parlayed it into separatist and centrifugal agitations post 1993, and had simply taken it in the chin, would an Obasanjo candidacy have been plausible? Would the political elite in Nigeria have concluded that it was wise, in the interest of preserving and stabilizing the union, to cede the presidency to the southwest?

Although the second most vehement opposition to Biafra is coming from the Middle Belt (next to the North), because the peoples who identify as Middle Belters probably resent the prospect of Biafra more than they resent the current union, you're absolutely right that in a region ravaged by herdsmen attacks and other ethnic clashes, the smug patriotism of "I love Nigeria" would be a hard sell. And that is exactly my point. But it was not always so. The region used to be suffused with a high sense of patriotism or commitment to the union; in fact the Igbo still blames it for helping to defeat Biafra and for preserving the Nigerian union. But this patriotism has taken flight as the region has experienced violence and convulsions and the Nigerian state has proven incapable of protecting lives and preserving peace. So, your example proves my point.

Even the Niger Delta, or more appropriately the militants who were amnestied, found a reason to "love Nigeria" during the presidencies of Yar'Adua and Good luck Jonathan after many years of separatist agitations.

All of these examples prove my point about the flakiness of patriotism in Nigeria, and its dependence on the political and economic fortunes, real or perceived, of certain regions and ethnicities at particular junctures.

That is why I don't respect patriotism in the Nigerian context and don't put much stock in it. Beyond this, as I stated, I harbor a deep-seated scholarly and philosophical suspicion and distrust of loud declarations of patriotism. Look at what patriotism is being used to do in the US, where I live. It is used to shut down critics, to silence those perceived not to sufficiently belong, to exclude those with a different ideology and skin color, those whose loyalty is questioned, those considered alien and not adequately American, etc. Patriotism is advanced to bolster the military industrial complex, the single biggest danger to the country and perhaps the world.

I have canvassed (and still do) restructuring the nation since 1998. I still prefer a decentred presidency given the geopilitical situation in Nigeria where there will not be only one person as president to the discomfiture of those who want to import the American system into Nigeria hook line and sinker.

I believe that should in large part take care of the separatist agitation caused in large part by the PERCEPTION that whoever is at the centre had cornered the largest cream of the national cake.

The presidency was not given to Obasajo after June 12 because of OPCs blackmail as you suggested but because decent men all over the country felt Aare Abiola should not have been murdered in captivity just because Babangida and his military sidekicks did not want him to rule.

If your thesis about ethnicity as the determinant of patriotism is valid why was this not more noticeable during the time of Obasanjo as President when everyone knew that he had more friends in the North and more critics in the Southwest that northerners were even hatching a plan for him to subvert the Constitution and run for a third time?

Isnt it a fact that Middle Belters in this campaign have just found unlikely bedfellows in the odious irrational separatist contention of Biafranists as surrogates because they think the larger Islamic population in the North is inferior to the minority Christians simply on account of their ways and their faith? Fortunately and unfortunately democracy is a game of numbers.

Yes, there are issues of hate such as the attrocities of the Fulani Herdsmen which I have roundly condemned. But is separatism the unavoidable solution to that?

Finally, if Buhari had treated the East with contempt but it is now the face of 'Joseph' Osinbajo (vizier) we see, (politics is the art of the possible) should that not be enough palliative for the East?

The absence of unanimity in Southwestern politics in the post-June 12 period does not vitiate my point. What I was referencing is the elite political consensus of the Southwest, the dominant political consensus of the post-June 12 period. By the way, the Southwest successfully leveraged that separatist agitation (SNC, OPC, and Oduduwa Republic advocacy) to ensure that a Yoruba person became president in 1999, with the two major parties both conceding their presidential tickets to Yoruba men--Obasanjo and Falae.

There is no region of Nigeria that has enjoyed political unanimity in terms of its position on and in the union at any time. There were and still are dissenting voices in the Niger Delta, who never favored the oil militancy. Not everyone in Igboland is in favor of Biafra and some are heavily invested in the Abuja-centered politics of Nigeria. Not everyone in the Middle Belt bought into Joseph Tarka and co's Middle Belt political agenda. Not everyone in the North was a follower of Ahmadu Bello. There was PRP, just as Awoism had its dissenters in the Southwest, etc, etc. But at any point in Nigeria's postcolonial history, you can discern where a particular people or region stand, the prevailing dominant political sentiment, and the consensus of its political elite. There is no question that in the post-June 12 period, patriotic sentiment was in short supply in the Southwest and disillusionment with the Nigerian union was at an all time high there. Today, the story is dramatically different, with you and at least three other Yoruba people gleefully and, in my opinion, smugly performing your patriotism on this thread in response to the original post by Fakinlede. I consider the entire exercise a bit vulgar and disturbing. My scholarly sensibilities condition me to be suspicious of such displays. I speak for myself alone.

Anyway, let's not argue about irrelevant details. My point about the ebbs and flows of patriotic sentiments corresponding to people's relationship to, role in, or marginalization from the federal government at any point in time remains. Even Biafra agitation, while vibrant during the Jonathan period, reached a new crescendo in correspondence to the undisguised contempt with which Buhari (not Osinbajo) has treated the Igbo, their aspirations, and their interests. It is not an accident that all of you engaging in incestuously embarrassing declarations of patriotism on this thread are Yoruba people, whose ethnic unit are on the ascendancy in this government and whose ethnic kin is the acting president. I could give other examples from different parts parts of the country to illustrate my point about patriotism in Nigeria being a relative strategic, self-interested, and Machiavellian enterprise.

Two last things. My overarching point is not even about the ideological and prebendal underpinning of effusive expressions of patriotism. Rather it is about how aggressive patriotism of the type being exhibited here is a dangerous phenomenon because it excludes (thanks Ken) and provides comfort and succor to powerful people who hide behind patriotic rhetoric to perpetrate evil, avoid doing what they should, defend incompetence, ignore problems and legitimate agitations, get away with oppression, and divide people.

I've been writing against the dangers of hyper-patriotic and pretentious patriotism that papers over the problems and deficits of the union for at least fifteen years. I could refer you to essays I published about fifteen years ago critiquing this woolly notion of patriotism. Besides, it was Wole Soyinka who said a tiger needs not declare its tigritude. I believe that wisdom applies to patriotism.

Finally, how can your response to the proliferation of centrifugal agitations in response to the malignant dysfunction of the union and to legitimate aspirations for structural reforms of the status quo be to simply declare your patriotism? How is that the answer? Is that not escapist?